I LOVE Thanksgiving. I love all the cooking and hanging out together. I love that my boys are excited about being together with family. I love the traditions and special foods that we only eat once a year...pumpkin pie, jello salad (yes, really!), special stuffing, and oh the cranberry sauce! And my college roommates could tell you I get very excited about decorating for Christmas....but everything in its own time. I have been super disheartened this year to hear more and more stores are open for Thanksgiving. (some all day, some part of the day).
Why am I so troubled?
1. Each of these stores have employees who also have families.
2. Is our consumer-driven culture so money hungry that we can't close our stores for one day? Is opening at midnight (or 4/5 am) friday morning not enough anymore?
3. It seems like we're pushing out Thanksgiving altogether and going straight from Halloween to Christmas. (and what a rich heritage we're missing teaching our children about the sacrifice of the pilgrims)
4. I'm saddened for what used to be. Is shopping really that important? (and those of you who know me would be shocked I'm saying that!)
5. Back in the day, if you forgot an ingredient in your massive thanksgiving feast, you just dealt with it (or called your neighbor to see if they had something...but wait, we don't know our neighbors anymore either, but that's for another blog :) ).
I know I will get some different opinions on this-- but I just had to say something. (and I'm not talking about hospitals, hotels, etc. I know some people have to work). Here's a good article I found about it:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/10/stores-open-thanksgiving-day-2013-disguisting
What's your thoughts?
1 comment:
I loved the article. Thanks for sharing. I just told a friend this a few weeks ago...Black Friday shopping used to be a really fun holiday tradition for all the girls on my side of the family. It was something we did together with my aunt and I loved it. I'm talking Old Navy bargains, not Best Buy. We don't do that kind of shopping in the name of Christmas. But with stores opening earlier and earlier, it's just made it lose all appeal to me. I mean, these days you're late if you're just getting out at 9am on Friday (which is what we did!). So I've just lost interest in the whole deal. Loved the quote from the WalMart employee. Sad, sad, sad.
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